How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: Volume 1

Liscia, Juna and Tomoe all acted like they had question marks floating above their heads. Aisha and I, on the other hand, were completely unsurprised.

“Oh, burdock root, huh?” I said.

“That’s burdock root,” Aisha agreed.

Well, I had heard burdock root was seen as a strange thing to eat in the West, so I didn’t find it strange that it wasn’t eaten here, but that Aisha, who looked like a Westerner, knew about it surprised me.

“In the forest, we have to eat everything we can, otherwise we would succumb to malnutrition in no time,” Aisha said, staring off into the distance.

Perhaps that food situation was what had made her the hungry dark elf she was today.

“Since they’re being introduced here, that means you can eat them, right?” Liscia asked, to which I nodded.

“You can eat them. But rather than enjoy them for their own flavor, you enjoy the flavor of the broth they were stewed in, or their texture. They’re mostly dietary fiber, which you can’t digest, but they have a medicinal effect and can help keep your bowel movements regular. They’re a good friend to those who are constipated.”

“…I wish you wouldn’t talk about bowel movements and constipation while we’re eating,” Liscia said.

“It helps expel waste products from the body. Of course, it’s good for your health and beauty.”

“Urkh. When you say that, it sounds tempting, but…”

Well, now that Liscia’s been talked into it, shall we get down to eating? I thought.

This time, I kept it simple. After scraping off the dirt using the back of a knife, I cut the burdock into long, thin shavings, coated it with potato starch, and put it into the pot of oil we had used earlier. Once it was properly fried, I took it out of the pot and split it into two bowls. One of these, I sprinkled salt on, while the other I sprinkled with sugar. With that, the burdock chips (potato chip-style and rusk-style) were complete.

As for everyone’s reactions after eating them…

“Huh, they’re crunchy and delicious.” said Liscia.

“These… would probably go well with beer,” Poncho said.

Liscia and Poncho were munching away at the salted ones like a snack.

“The oil that comes out when you bite into them melts the sugar, and the sweetness spreads through your whole mouth,” said Juna.

“I’d sure like to let both my moms try this,” said Tomoe.

Juna and Tomoe, who were eating the ones with sugar, gave comments that were worth full points as a food critic and a child respectively.

As for Aisha…

“If you eat them together, they’re salty-sweet and delicious!” she announced, munching away at both.

Yeah, sure, I guess it’s okay to eat them that way, too.

The next edible ingredients were red bear’s paw (bear paw), sword tiger’s liver (tiger liver), and whole cooked salamandra (whole cooked giant salamander), but we only went as far as introducing them.

It was true that they weren’t customarily eaten in this country, but rare delicacies that only an adventurer could hope to catch weren’t something I wanted people going out of their way to acquire. If they happened to get their hands on them by some chance, I just wanted them to know to please eat them, not to throw them away. Besides, even I don’t know how to prepare bear paw.

Ah, by the way, at the ingredients selection stage I removed blowfish, poisonous mushrooms, and anything else poisonous from the list. I knew they could be eaten if prepared properly, but if starvation-stricken amateurs were to try their hand at them, it was clear it would only end badly.

Mind you, even the poisonous parts could be eaten if you really wanted to. In Ishikawa Prefecture, there’s “blowfish ovaries pickled in rice-bran paste,” and in Nagano Prefecture, there are regions where they eat the famously poisonous fly amanita mushroom.

…The human appetite sure is something, huh?

Getting back to the story, the next ingredient shocked all of us.

“This here is our next ingredient, yes.”

“““““Th-This is…”””””

This time, all of our eyes went wide.

Inside the box Poncho opened, there was a bluish-green gelatinous object.

“That’s… a gelin, right?” I asked.

It was one of the soft-bodied slime creatures that could be found in fields everywhere. They looked and acted just like the enemy from RPGs. Their defining characteristic was how weak they were. If you cut them, they’d die. If you smashed them, they’d die, too. They attached themselves to living (or dead) creatures and sucked nutrients from them. There was no male or female: they multiplied by division. They were probably what you’d get if you had an amoeba or other single-celled organism grow to a gigantic size.

Huh? We’re eating that? Or, rather, can we even eat that?

Then I noticed Aisha seemed to be cocking her head to the side in confusion.

“Hold on. Is that gelin dead?”

“Yes. This gelin has already been finished off,” Poncho said.